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Sneak Peek at the G.O.P. 2016 Field

By Andrew Rosenthal January 5, 2015 3:23 pmJanuary 5, 2015 3:23 pm

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Jeb Bush.Credit Susan Walsh/Associated Press

With the next presidential election a mere 22 months away, it’s high time for speculation — informed, ill-informed and just plain wild — about who will be running for the nominations of the two major parties.

The Democratic contest is not so exciting, since it seems so likely that Hillary Clinton will secure the nomination if she wants it. The Republicans, on the other hand, already have a crowd of hopefuls, many of whom would be vastly entertaining if they ran (and not necessarily in a good way), but very few of whom I can see winning a national election, let alone governing the country.
The flavor of the month is former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who is “actively” exploring a bid. He has a big advantage, which is that the Republicans generally nominate the candidate whose turn it is, without regard to whether he seems like he could actually win a presidential election and sometimes despite his rather obvious inability to do just that (think of Bob Dole, John McCain and Mitt Romney).

Mr. Bush is conservative. But it remains to be seen whether he can become crazy-right enough to be nominated. He said on Sunday that individual states should be allowed to decide whether to allow same-sex marriage. Give him a year and he’ll denounce any and all “non-traditional” unions.

It’s hard for me to see Jeb Bush winning nationally. I’ve always thought of him as the Beau Bridges half of the Bush brothers’ show. And Ed Kilgore of Talking Points Memo pointed out last month that Jeb Bush has never won two years’ worth of polls pitting him against Mrs. Clinton. In fact, according to RealClear Politics, he does worse against her than some other G.O.P. wannabes, like Mike Huckabee.

Yes, Mr. Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and born-again preacher, is toying with a second run. (He announced a few days ago that he was leaving Fox News so he could make up his mind.) In 2008, Mr. Huckabee had enough backing among the fundamentalist Christian base of the G.O.P. to make John McCain’s life miserable. I can’t see him breaking out of that role, but he’s a good campaigner.

I was surprised to see that Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, was interested in repeating his disastrous 2012 campaign. Mr. Perry is going to Iowa on Jan. 20, after leaving the governor’s office on Jan. 14, a sign of overweening ambition, if nothing else. A spokesman helpfully explained that, this time, Mr. Perry will be really great because he’ll be able to focus entirely on a campaign rather than trying “to govern 24/7” at the same time. That’s not much of an excuse. George W. Bush, just to take one example, was a sitting governor when he ran in 2000.

There are a couple of Senators among the other supposed 2016 contenders, like Rand Paul of Kentucky. He has both the advantage and disadvantage of being a libertarian, which makes him hard to peg down on a traditional left-right spectrum. In a general election, he could well take votes away from a Democratic candidate by advocating for reform of the criminal justice system and the National Security Agency. But these very positions might make him unpalatable to the more traditional Republican primary crowd.

Until recently, there was a lot of attention on Senator Marco Rubio, who would at least provide a break from the older white guy pattern. But it seems like the shifting relationship between the United States and Cuba (which is one of his big issues) and Jeb Bush’s interest in running as another son of Florida pretty much take Mr. Rubio out of the picture.

Then there’s Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. He’s not just conservative. He’s a Tea Party wingnut. His only apparent legislative achievement in the Senate was once partially shutting down the government, and his only guiding principle seems to be blocking President Obama at every turn.

The Republican primary schedule seems designed to make sure that a candidate with true broad appeal does not emerge. But maybe that won’t matter. In general elections voters choose the better candidate (i.e. the lesser of two evils). The expected Democrat, Hillary Clinton, made a mess of her 2008 campaign. She is capable of doing it again.

Correction: January 5, 2015This post originally stated that Mike Huckabee ran for president in 2012. It was 2008.